IN FLAMES Frontman Talks Next Studio Album

December 4, 2012

Josh Campbell of Unsung Melody recently conducted an interview with vocalist Anders Fridén of Swedish metallers IN FLAMES. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.

Unsung Melody: It has been almost two years since “Sounds of A Playground Fading” has been released, and according to Daniel Svensson (IN FLAMES drummer) in a recent interview, he stated that you all have nothing written for your next album. However, have you been thinking forward about what direction you will be taking with the next album?

Anders: No, not yet. We will sound like IN FLAMES, however that turns out. We’re not going to turn into a country band, or an industrial band, or a punk band. Obviously, you should hear it two to three years between albums, I would think. I admire lots and lots of bands, like AC/DC, that can do the same album again and again, but at the same time, deviate here and there. I don’t want to be that band. I don’t want to be a band that everyone knows exactly what they are going to get. We all mature, develop, and try to expand our own instruments in what we do, as far as possible. What we are able to do will sound like IN FLAMES, but it will not sound exactly like the previous album. If people can trace our history through the albums, and I don’t want to do the same thing again and again. At the same time, to me, the balance between the melody and the aggression is still important.

Unsung Melody: Niclas Engelin [guitar] has been a part of IN FLAMES, off and on, for a while now. He had been filling in for Jesper [Strömblad] the last time I saw your show, in 2009. Is he now considered a full-fledged member of IN FLAMES, and will he take part in the writing process on the next album?

Anders: Oh yeah, he’s a full member. We will see that works out and what we will do. Me and Björn [Gelotte, guitar] have been doing the IN FLAMES albums and we have a good vision of where we want to go. He’s definitely considered a full-time member. He’s always been there for us. Helping out, and when Jesper left, he was like, “Of course, I’ll do this.” We haven’t looked back since. He’s awesome, energy, injection to the machinery. He’s always good live, and he’s good at guitar.

Unsung Melody: I think I’m not the only one curious these days about PASSENGER. It was mentioned a few years ago that you hoped to do another album, but quite some time has passed since then. Do you all still intend to get together and write a new album?

Anders: It’s been pushed to the side, I would say. Me and Niclas are here, together. We talk about it once in a while, especially after a few beers. Yeah, it would be so much fun. It would be, but I think we need time. It’s not something that should be forced. That’s how the first album came about. Brought a bunch of beers to the studio, and wrote shit. All of a sudden, we had an album. We had no intention of it actually being released. We just did it for the fun of it. Then we played it for them, and we were like, “Yeah, let’s do this.” We had an album in the making, but after a while, it started to feel forced. It doesn’t feel right, so why should we do it? It might happen, it might not happen. I don’t really know what the other two guys are up to anymore. They may not even be in music anymore. Me and Niclas may be the only ones active.

According to The Pulse Of Radio, contrary to Internet rumors, DEF LEPPARD will not be suing pop group ONE DIRECTION. Some fans are up in arms over the similarities between the ONE DIRECTION chart-topper “Midnight Memories” and DEF LEPPARD’s 1987 track “Pour Some Sugar On Me”, which peaked at No. 2 in 1988. LEPPARD’s two guitarists, “Sugar” co-writer Phil Collen and Vivian Campbell spoke to Billboard about the song, with Collen stating the songs are “very similar in structure” but nothing more. Campbell added: “The chords are one-four-five. Those are the blues. You don’t get more basic than that. I think what’s more reminiscent of the LEPPARD thing is the production, the sound, the vocals, the reverb and the way it’s assembled. That is very flattering that all of a sudden these kids think it’s a cool sound. I think a lot of people of their generation aren’t going to connect their music to ours.”

Phil Collen said that this situation isn’t the same as the similarities between and ROBIN THICKE’s “Blurred Lines” and MARVIN GAYE’s classic “Got to Give It Up”. “That’s different,” he said. “In fact, it’s got the mayonnaise jar and people hooting in the background which Marvin Gaye had. I don’t see that you can do that. The ONE DIRECTION one is very similar in structure, but it’s all good.”

Earlier this year, THE WHO was rumored to be contemplating a lawsuit against ONE DIRECTION for the production similarities between their “Best Song Ever” and “Baba O’Riley” — until Pete Townshend went public to dispel the rumors and state that he was flattered by them being influenced by his record.

DEF LEPPARD guitarist Phil Collen told The Pulse Of Radio he and his bandmates always look forward to playing their hits out on the road. “Every night when someone’s singing along — especially when there’s a lot of young kids there, 16-year-olds and that — it is fresh, actually makes you feel really good when there’s a whole new breed of people just singing away to songs that you’ve done,” he said. “It doesn’t really matter whether it’s a new so

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